Government 'run out of ideas' with new tax on plastic bags

Shoppers face 5p charge for plastic bags, as Labour says Coalition has run out
of ideas

Labour has accused the government of running out of ideas, as it includes new taxes on plastic bags in today’s Queen’s Speech.

Shoppers will be charged 5p for every plastic carrier bag they buy from October 2015, under plans to bring England into line with Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Ministers believe the move will cut plastic bag use by 76 per cent, reducing littering and saving the lives of fish and sea mammals that can be injured by discarded packaging. Supermarkets will be expected to give the proceeds to charity under a voluntary code. Smaller businesses will be exempt.

Labour said the plastic bag tax showed the Government lacked serious policies to make people better off.

“This is a zombie Government that is fast running out of steam and ideas,” said Angela Eagle, Labour’s shadow leader of the House of Commons.

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“Just because the government announces it’s a bold programme, does not mean actually that it is.”

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will use today’s Speech, the last of the Coalition, to present their “ground-breaking” pensions reform as an answer to “sceptics” who claim that the Government has run out of steam.

New laws delivering the “biggest transformation in our pensions system since its inception” will be the centrepiece of the Coalition’s last legislative programme.

A bill allowing voters to sack MPs who break the law will also finally be published today, after years of Coalition disagreements about so-called “recall” powers.

The Prime Minister and his deputy insisted that today’s package shows that, four years after taking office, they are “still taking bold steps”.

In a joint foreword to a report setting out the legislative programme, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg urge voters to give them both credit for maintaining their governing partnership amid widespread doubts.

“It is easy to forget when we first came together in the national interest just how sceptical people were about how long the Coalition could last and how much change we could effect,” they said. “Four years on, our parties are still governing together and still taking bold steps.”

The most far-reaching legislation in today’s package will overhaul pension laws, allowing people to withdraw cash freely from their retirement funds without being forced to buy an annuity.

“By no longer forcing people to buy an annuity, we are giving them total control over the money they have put aside over their lifetime and greater financial security in their old age,” Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg write.

“It’s all part of our wider mission to put power back in the hands of the people who have worked hard – trusting them to run their own lives.”

The new pensions laws will also allow workers to contribute to Dutch-style “collective pension” funds which they will share with thousands of other members.

However, the Coalition’s decision to focus the Speech on pensions reforms that were first announced in the Budget in March make it easier for Labour to attack ministers as failing to make new laws.

Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg insisted that the Queen’s Speech will set out a wide range of measures that are “unashamedly pro-work, pro-business and pro-aspiration".

Among the pro-business laws expected today is a Small Business Bill which will force big banks to refer firms to alternative lenders, encouraging competition in the market for loans.

Small housing developers will also be exempted from new environmental

controls to encourage the building of thousands of new homes.

The Speech will also set out details of other measures promised earlier this year, including a payment of up to £2,000 per child to parents paying for childcare.

Parents who starve their children of love and affection also face prosecution under a “Cinderella Law” first revealed by the Telegraph earlier this year.

The new law that has caused the greatest tension within the Coalition is a measure allowing MPs who break the law to be “recalled” to face a by-election.

The change, first promised by ministers in 2010, emerged from the MPs’ Expenses Scandal in 2009, when several MPs kept their seats despite public outrage at their conduct.

The recall bill has been repeatedly delays because of disputes about how to trigger a recall election, and the potential role of judges in ruling on a MPs’ compliance with a new code of conduct.

The Lib Dems last night presented the presence of a recall bill in the Speech as a victory for their party in the face of Conservative resistance. However, the Government’s bill will come under attack from critics including Conservative MPs who say it does not go far enough in giving power to voters.

Despite the show of unity between the Prime Minister and his deputy, the Lib Dems were last night attempting to play up the differences between the two governing parties.

Mr Clegg’s party suffered dismal results at the European elections, beaten into fifth place by the Greens and losing all but one MEP.

He has also faced intense pressure over his own leadership, with a Lib Dem peer close to Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, accused of plotting to oust him.

Lib Dem sources last night said the party should get more credit for the economic recovery, and swiping at the Conservatives over policies like the decision to cut the 50p top rate of income tax.

A Lib Dem source said: “The recovery would not be happening without the Liberal Democrats in government. And Liberal Democrats want as many people as possible to feel the benefits of this recovery – not just a few.”